Introduction

Background

Education is widely recognized as the foundation of a progressive society. The recent trends in globalization underscore the importance of ‘market ready’ trained human resources. This trait of being ‘market ready’ is not attainable without quality education. While India is recognized for its humongous human capital, the current industry feedback suggests that there is an urgent need to improve the skill base of the educated youth in India

Traditionally, the government focus, in the education sector, has been towards delivering primary and secondary/higher secondary education and enhancing infrastructure to reach the broader populace. However, the drive to upgrade the quality within these levels has also met with limited success due to conflicting demands on the state/centre budgets for more priority programmes or issues.

The opening up of the Indian economy and its subsequent implications make a very strong case for enhancing the higher and technical education infrastructure in the country. With the emergence of service sector as one of the fastest growing economic drivers, the focus is now clearly on being able to cater to the burgeoning demand for professionally/technically trained graduates. Only 39.5 per cent of graduates in India are employable and the challenge is to bridge the human resources gap by providing skills training to the other 60 per cent, says a Confederation of Indian Industry-Aspire report released at the 'Skills World 2008' summit organised by the CII and Aspire on the 16th of May 2008. If higher and technical education needs improvement, the improvement will have to come about from a grass-root level. It is imperative that we ensure that children have access to quality education both at the school level and at the higher and technical levels.